HL-20 Personnel Launch System
HL-20 Mock-Up
|
|
| Operator | NASA |
|---|---|
| Applications | Manned spaceplane |
| Specifications | |
| Launch mass | 10,884 kg (23,995 lb) |
| Regime | Low Earth |
| Production | |
| Status | Cancelled |
| Launched | 0 |
| Related spacecraft | |
| Derivatives | HL-42, Dream Chaser |
The HL-20 Personnel Launch System was a circa 1990 NASA spaceplane concept for manned orbital missions studied by NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. It was envisaged as a lifting body re-entry vehicle similar to the Soviet BOR-4 spaceplane design. Its stated goals were to achieve low operational costs, improved flight safety, and a possibility of landing on conventional runways. No flight hardware was built.
With increasing national interest in obtaining routine access to space, a number of Earth-to-orbit transportation systems were being studied in the mid-1980s. One, referred to as a Personnel Launch System (PLS), could utilize the HL-20 and an expendable launch system to provide manned access complementing the Space Shuttle. A full-size engineering research model of the HL-20 was constructed in 1990 by the students and faculty of North Carolina State University and North Carolina A & T University for studying crew seating arrangements, habitability, equipment layout and crew ingress and egress. This 29 feet (9 m) long engineering research model was used at Langley to define the full-scale external and internal definition of the HL-20 for utilization studies.
The PLS mission was to transport people and small amounts of cargo to and from low-Earth orbit, i.e., a small space taxi system. Although never approved for development, the PLS concept spaceplane was designed as a complement to the Space Shuttle and was being considered an addition to the manned launch capability of the United States for three main reasons:
Two designs that were considered for PLS differed in their aerodynamic characteristics and mission capabilities:
Predating and influencing the design of the Space Shuttle, several lifting body craft including M2-F2, M2-F3, HL-10, X-24A, and X-24B were flown by test pilots from 1966 through 1975. The M2-F2 and the HL-10 were proposed in the 1960s to carry 12 people to a space station following launch on a Saturn IB. The HL-20 PLS concept was evolved from these early shapes, being further influenced by the Russian Kosmos-1445 and Kosmos-1374 and later MiG-105. The "HL" designation stands for horizontal lander, and "20" reflects Langley's long-term involvement with the lifting body concept, which included the Northrop HL-10.
...
Wikipedia